8.55 seconds in Wrexham, Celeste's Sky Sports flame is out & niche 2025-26 predictions

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I'm sorry, you can sit there and look and play with all your silly machines as much as you like.

Is Gascoigne going to have a crack?

Yes, you know.

Oh, I think

brilliant.

But geez!

He's round the goal, Keeper.

He's done it!

Absolutely incredible!

He launched himself six feet into the crowd and Kung Fu kicked a supporter who was eye without a shadow of a doubt getting him lip.

Oh, I say!

It's amazing!

He does it tame and tame and tame again.

Break up the music!

Charge a glass!

This nation is going to dance all night long!

The nichest world record in the football has been broken again.

Jimmy Floyd Hasselbank is an ex-footballer doing strictly, and he really needs to emphasise both of those things.

The extinguishing of Celeste's five-year sky sports flame, Serie Arnostalgia with the Schooner Scorer, the first 10 guests on Monday Night Football, and other niche prem predictions for 25-26, throwaway football speak in Homer's Iliad, and the Robert Earnshaw of Bedwetting.

Brought to your ears by Goal Hanger Podcasts.

This is Football Clichés.

Hello everyone and welcome to football clichés.

I'm Adam Hurry.

This is the 450th episode of Football Cliches No Less.

I'm joined by David Walker and also Charlie Eccleshare who has been dropping clichés references into rival football podcasts.

Daniel Story.

Good morning.

Happy new season.

Happy new season Daniel of the eye.

Daniel, what does a man who's done the 92 do next?

He goes on the road.

He notes that 60 games is quite a lot fewer than 92 and and he does 60 long reads around England and Scotland and Europe and anywhere else.

I like it.

Was that from your editor or from Mrs.

Tory?

That was for the moment me.

Did Jimbo react, Charlie?

Or did you carry on?

Sort of just carried on.

I think Duncan Alexander who's also there may have sniggered a little bit but yeah largely just just carried on as if nothing had happened.

Always rely on Duncan for these moments.

Yes, that's David Walker's voice you can hear.

Right, which of you is enjoying more my hotel shortlist on the Google Doc for the 2025 tour and my increasingly impolite reminders to book the train tickets?

I love it.

Yeah, I really enjoy, I'm always interested to get an insight into someone else's sort of planning process.

So seeing your, I'd sort of started a very rudimentary dock of trains and things and then looked at yours, absolutely blew it out of the water with bullet points, hyperlinks everywhere you could look.

It was a work of art.

I mean, all I have in my mind is the Leeds quiz recently, where I turned up at the hotel with Dave and Dave just suddenly realised that I hadn't booked his hotel room for him.

An astonishing, and he just bowled up and booked it himself at the desk.

Yeah.

Fair play.

And got the room cheaper than you paid for, Son.

It's very annoying.

He's done his business late in the window.

Don't leave things late, potential live show attendees.

Come and join us in Brighton, Cardiff, Hackney Empire in London, Birmingham, Dublin and Manchester.

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Go to tickets.footballcliches.com.

It's going to be brilliant.

Right, the midweek adjudication panel begins in earnest.

There's only one place to start.

Dozens of you sent us this.

It's a new world record for away fans not realising a goal has been scored.

Wrexham versus Hull in the Carabao.

Having a go, Hull City with

more of the ball.

And that's a lovely ball.

Gelhardy's in.

He squares it.

And Andala

has given Hull City the lead.

Delayed reaction because the ball bounced back out of the net,

and the whole city fans have now cottoned onto the fact that the ball has indeed gone in.

Dave, this is surreal: 8.55 seconds, obliterating the previous record of 6.16 set by Yeovil, of course.

Yeah, so I think we can see why this has happened though.

So, if you haven't watched this goal,

the goals at Wrexham,

to my surprise, are quite sort of

like amateur, like non-leaguey, almost like not even non-league, like the sort of goal you'd see on a 4G

pitch somewhere at a school.

They've got like a massive plastic rim around the bottom.

Are they got the wheels?

Yeah, I don't think they've got the wheels, but there's just a really big, thick plastic rim around the bottom of the net.

So the ball has hit that and bounced all the way back out and nearly gone out of the area.

And a whole player sort of catches it as it goes as it rebounds out and they the goal scorer wheels away to the left but the ball goes off to the right and sort of so there's sort of two little pockets of celebrations and the fans don't realize that the goal's gone in until they see the goal scorer running back across the goal towards the other players to celebrate now how is that not more of a visual cue at what point does it are they do they not think what are the players doing well what are they up to charlie this is this is the bit that baffles me the most like there's still it still takes another couple of seconds for that body language not to register.

But even the commentator's confused.

You can tell he doesn't fully commit to it for a little while as well.

I think his reaction, that's almost the fact that the fans are a bit bemused, I can understand, but it shows how confusing it is because the ball does bounce out in a really weird way.

But what I wonder is what they think.

Like, I can see why, because the ball comes out, but I don't really know what could have happened because it can't really have gone wide away, certainly from like a commentator's, or I don't know where the fans are from their vantage point.

But I guess you're just so focused on, well, the ball needs to end up in the back of the neck.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah,

there's no logical train of thought.

It's just in an instant impulse.

I'm surprised that they're allowed to have that goal.

That doesn't seem like a regulation goal.

I don't know if they've had it in the last two seasons when they've been in the EFL, but if you're going to have a goal like that, surely this is going to happen quite often.

Bad for the product.

Really bad for the product.

Dave, Mike Parry's theory that a human will one day be able to run the 100 meters in one second, notwithstanding.

I do think that there is a limit to human endeavour.

And

I don't think we're going to beat 8.55 seconds for this.

I don't think it's possible for human beings not to register that a football goal has been scored in a longer time than that.

Unless, you know, there's that prototype architectural model of a stadium that can hold a million supporters.

Have you seen that?

And it's just like massive.

So imagine if

the away fans are right at the back of that, maybe, maybe

speed of light to that as well.

That's gonna add at least a fraction of a second.

But yeah, 8.55 seconds I've clocked it at, Charlie.

In that time, Automobile Pininfarina's Batista Hyper GT,

the fastest accelerating production vehicle in the world, that's how long it takes to go a quarter mile.

So it's a long time.

Okay.

And just thinking, like, with the with the sort of sprinting, I mean, that's edging closer towards the 100 meter world record.

As that comes down and this goes up, I wonder at what point those two are going to meet.

Exciting.

But yeah, I don't see this record being beaten for a very long time.

I almost thought that the whole fans are doing it deliberately.

Did they know?

It wouldn't surprise me.

Very knowledgeable fan base.

Right.

Next up, this came from Murray Burt, who was listening to this Scrimmage, which is BBC Radio's Norwich City show.

And this caller wants to wax lyrical about new signing Papa Amadou Diallo, a one-time Watford target.

And unless wax lyrical about Diallo, Chris Gorham has already told me not to get too carried away but I'm not like that I get carried away that was a brilliant first half performance for him wasn't it Freddie yeah he was absolutely fantastic you know Watford fans really must be sort of kicking themselves in the teeth at how they didn't get get this player

you kicking yourself in the teeth babe wish I was that flexible

that is a beautiful mangled cliche Charlie I mean again as always you can see how it's happened it's just it's rolled off his tongue with tremendous results.

Yeah, and also even the fact that it's the fan.

I don't feel like it's normally the fans who are the ones said to be kicking themselves.

It's more just the club or the people in charge.

Tough, tough one for the fans.

There's not a lot they could have done about it.

Yeah, I really enjoyed that.

Now, speaking of mangled football speak, many people alerted us to this.

Jimmy Floyd Hasselbank is the latest footballer turned strictly contestant.

And this was his, you know, hyper textbook unveiling speech, Dave.

Swapping the pitch for the ballroom is certainly not something I've done before, but I'm looking forward to tackling a fun challenge.

Bring on a new type of footwork with hopefully no-own goals.

Ian Woodcock says, I'm sorry, there's no way Jimmy Floyd Hazerbank said any of these things.

Absolutely.

Yeah, I want to hear him say that.

Where's the video clip?

That is ridiculous.

They've got it in quote marks.

I mean, you could...

You could write that about him and it would still be shit, but at least it would kind of be obvious that it was just a hackneyed bit of cliche-ridden prose, whatever.

But to say that this is what he said, he's clearly not said any of that stuff.

Yeah, you sort of forget that because we sort of are in the industry, so to speak, we're aware that this sort of thing happens all the time.

And obviously, someone at their press office has drafted it, and he may have given, you know, it's probably given sign-off or something.

But yeah, it is presented as if he has actually said these words.

Sam Jacobs asks, Charlie, why has Jimmy Floyd Hasselbank allowed this to happen?

There should be an element of like stepping in and saying, Do you know what?

I wouldn't say this.

Stop doing this.

What part of it do you think is the worst well the tackling bit just because that's so generic football speak for someone who has no association with tackling whatsoever i mean that is just nothing to do with jimmy jimmy vlodhaserbank the footballer i mean no own goals again no not something you really associate with old jimmy um but i mean yeah i wonder how many seconds his representative or whoever was presented this with looked at it for before being like yeah it's fine whatever I really don't care.

Dave, why did it need four references to football?

Like, once you've established this guy's a footballer, put one in and that's it.

Yeah.

Just really hammering it home appropriately for Jimmy Ford Hasselpagga.

That would have been more appropriate.

But how are we going to work in his minimal backlift into

that?

Yeah.

Didn't he famously tear his hamstring and keep playing or something?

Oh, right.

Yeah, this will be the next step.

They have to further ram home that he's an ex-footballer with a little dance move.

Yeah.

yeah, a penalty or something.

He just hammers one in, it's gonna be dreadful, absolutely dreadful, right?

Um, well, the biggest news of the preseason so far: Celeste's Stop This Flame is no longer the tune for Sky Sports Premier League coverage.

Dave, I mean, what are your instant reactions to this?

Are you sad about it?

Do you think it was time?

It's another sign of the changing era that we're moving into.

And

Match of the Day 2 is gone.

Celeste's gone.

We are in a new era this season.

There was a time when I was sort of, I'd got a bit bored of Celeste, and I thought, yeah, come on, we can freshen it up now.

But then it kind of endured so much past that point that now I've become fond of it again.

So I'm a bit sad that it's going in a way, yeah.

So the new title track for the Premier League season on Sky Sports Charlie will be Casabian's Goat, featuring Crystal.

So it's a rework of the original song.

They haven't released it yet.

Apparently, we'll be able to hear this on Thursday evening/slash Friday morning.

Can't wait.

Can't wait to see how Kristal has been incorporated into the original track.

So they're really going big on it.

This isn't just like, because I feel like, you know, the stop is fame is more just like it was knocking around and they quite liked it and thought it would work.

This feels like a bigger deal.

I'm interested to see what they do with the rework.

Like, let's hear a little bit of the original now and we can see maybe where they might go.

Yeah, it's not as lively as I thought it would be.

It doesn't have any sort of real kind of bombast to it, does it?

I just think it's a bit on the nose.

I don't know whether they wrote it with this sort of thing in mind, whether even if just generally writing it in terms of not thinking it would be used by Sky, but just thinking that it might be good for sports montages or something.

But it's the lyrics of it are properly like all about you can be the greatest of all time, and there's mention of you're an icon and gotta be strong, hit them hard it's I mean it's almost a bit boxingy actually there's sort of mentions out around now

yeah it's yeah it's um I'm interested to see how they rework it look into the sky because you know it's true you could be the greatest of all time I mean that that's incredibly sky sports Charlie that's that's exactly the sentiment they're after yeah that is a really interesting idea as well as to whether bands do write songs with

this could be a football montage potential you're the magic they see it in their heads as they're writing it you're the magic You're the reason why they came.

Love will always find a way.

And you're way before your time.

Let them fly.

Let them fly.

Dave,

I mean, you couldn't write lyrics better for the opening sequence of a Premier League match.

It's just empty enough, isn't it?

Yeah, just which bit of the song are they going to use for the actual...

Obviously, the

longer he jumps out as a section to use for me.

The longer it's going to be.

Maybe Christyle will come in, liven it up a bit.

The break stabs are the big thing that really bury into your brain, aren't they?

So which bit are are we going to hear?

I want to hear from this crystal, Charlie.

I want her to deny the rumours that she's simply a pro-Evo Celeste.

Yeah, there'll be a backlash, right?

Yeah, definitely.

Maybe not because it's Sky, but if this was a BBC thing, there would 100% be a massive thing about this.

Definitely.

You'll be a national story.

Yeah.

Let's lay Celeste stop this flame to rest in the most respectful way.

Here's our version.

Just class.

Absolutely class.

And they say we couldn't dovetail.

They're wrong.

All three of us with our eyes closed.

Properly getting into it.

Yeah.

Right.

Lovely stuff.

Here's a little theory for you.

Enjoyed this from Liam on Twitter, Dave.

QPR, Crystal Palace, Spurs are all cousins in the same way that Bournemouth, Brighton, and Brentford are.

I really like this logic.

There's no explanation, and nor should there be.

I kind of see what they're saying.

QBR and Spurs, definitely.

Palace, I'm less convinced of.

To Spurs.

Maybe Palace and QPR.

But QBR and Spurs, yeah, 100%.

The cousin aspect of this, Charlie, is quite crucial because it means you really don't have to explain it.

It's just a vibe.

You know, if you said they were like brothers, then you'd have to go, oh, well, they share all these characteristics, do they?

But no cousins, yeah, just the same vibe, really.

Cousins is so broad, yeah.

It's good.

Yeah, I like that from Liam.

Excellent stuff.

Now,

I'm sure on this podcast, fairly recently, Dave, we discussed the potential future of Dominic Calvert Lewin and who might, you know, take the punt on his fitness for the coming season.

I don't know if we speculated that Leeds United might get involved, but David Ornstein has broken the exclusive news that Leeds United have reached an agreement in principle to sign Dominic Calvert Lewin.

I mean, this is perfect.

This is absolutely perfect.

This is the only place he could have gone.

Well, I think I did make the point that he could have signed for almost anyone in the Premier League, including promoter clubs.

I don't know if we mentioned Lee specifically, but I think, yeah, him, he does fit the bill in terms of being still being attractive enough to promoted teams who are looking to, you know, get a bit of an edge, looking to just take a punt on something that might help them stay up.

And yeah, is he leadsy, though?

I don't know if he is very leadsy.

I suppose he is a bit.

It does feel a bit odd because they've had Bamford for all this time, and I think of them as sort of similar, like can be great on their day, but also quite injury-prone and maybe can't quite cut it.

And it's almost like with Bamford, because Bamford is still there, isn't he?

But he's being

politely frozen out.

One of the most polite freezing outs I've ever seen.

So they need, so it's like they need the sort of injury-prone, can be great on his day, but that day is becoming rarer and rarer player.

It feels like a meeting in the middle of two concepts here.

Dominic Calvert-Lewin's career is on the gentle slide, mainly because of fitness concerns, but you know, he's very, he's still a very on his day kind of player.

And leads are very much an on their day kind of club dave because obviously they've been promoters they're on their way back up but you know but they are still a big club so the two who kind of met in the middle said well you know we can help each other out here a little bit so i think it it fits really nicely in a narrative sense yeah yeah yeah it is good it does work just carrying that on as well i think they both bampford and calvert luin had their best certainly premier league season in the same season which was that lockdown 2020 21 season bamford got 17 premier league goals that season calvert lewin got 16.

All right.

They'll pass each other in the revolving doors at Thorpe Arch.

And say, well, could have been me, but no.

Remember that?

Remember that lockdown season?

All the goals we scored.

Other transfer news, Charlie.

QPR have agreed a deal with Wickham for Richard Kone for 2.75 million.

We were discussing this a while back.

We missed the 2.7 million.

It's such a classic little transfer fee.

And Christian Goldman says we're so back.

We are back.

2.75.

Lovely little transfer fee.

Good to see it.

Yeah, it's great that.

I love that.

I love 3.25.

All those.

All those little ones.

Those little decimals.

Have we ever had

something 0.15?

Yeah, there definitely have been, but they were rarer.

Yeah, I don't like a 1.5.

There's no reason for it.

I mean, a 2.5 or a 7.5, that sounds like it's been negotiated up or down.

But a 1.5, what's that all about?

What about an 0.5?

That really feels like taking a piss.

I like it.

Can't look at that.

Just sounds like an exchange rate technicality, that.

Finally, for part part one, Dave, this came for Joe M.

Ketchum, who says, is anyone safe from the who?

There's obviously swarms of players who haven't made it that welcome the who response to the substitution announcement.

Of course, there's also the well-known players who get it ironically anyway.

Is there a small gap between these groups?

Who fills that?

Or do we go straight from one to the other?

Does anybody fall between these cracks, Dave, of the who when they come on as a sub?

I think it's a bit of a dying art these days, isn't it?

The who?

I don't, I can't remember hearing it that much.

Certainly, I can remember it being more of a thing, you know, when I was at Watford, say even like 20 years ago, it would quite often happen when the subs came on, but I don't know.

Is the fact that there's more subs people have just sort of given up?

There's too many to do.

It's a great question, though, because it definitely did reach a saturation point where it was basically happening to any player.

And because there was something quite funny about it, either in a sort of like, oh, this is a bit harsh, like you're battering a team 3-0 and they bring on some kid you haven't heard of.

And that is quite funny.

You know, or you do it to Kevin De Bruyne or whatever, which, you know, some people find amusing.

Maybe the social media age of fandom, Charlie, has killed this off because people don't want people don't want it to come back to bite them on the ass, you know, in the future.

Yeah, or I thought you were going to say that people are so desperate to show that they know everything.

So in the age of like, oh, I've actually been watching this player since he was, you know, 18 and playing for Leon, you wouldn't want to convey ignorance of this potential starlight.

I like that theory a lot more, actually.

He's actually top eight percentile in FB ref before passes completed, so you probably should know who he is.

Right, excellent.

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Indeed, over to the Balarics we go now to hear from hyperactive Posho beer hound Schooner Scorer.

Now, I haven't seen a huge amount of this guy, I must confess, but I've seen enough to safely assume that his football knowledge is in the absolute basement.

And so it proves.

The lunch we've had, fantastic.

Vinny shrimp, lobster, you name it, we've had it, took the boat over.

Anyway, what we're drinking is this, an Italian beer called Bomb Ver.

Whose beer is it?

Tristian Vieri played AC Milan in the 90s.

Now he's making beers.

Let's see how it goes.

We'll sit one schooner.

Let's see the score.

Charlie, this is tantalisingly wrong enough to annoy me.

But if it was more wrong, I reckon I would have ignored it.

But it's just right on the cusp of being almost right.

Yeah, not in the 90s, was it?

No.

There's no way, Dave, he's referring to Vieri's 14 games in six months at Milan in 05-06, is he?

No, definitely not.

He hasn't got a fucking clue what he's talking about.

Plucked it out of nowhere.

Fuck off, mate.

I am reliably informed, Charlie, that James Horncock is fuming about this since there is so he should be.

Oh, he's annoyed the right people.

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We'll be back very shortly.

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Oh, look at that!

That is wonderful!

Welcome back to Football Cliches, part two of the midweek adjudication panel.

Firstly, though, if you want to sign up for Dreamland, our exclusive members-only football clichés experience, you'll get two episodes a month of Dreamland, our exclusive new show.

Add free versions of all of our podcasts and other things as well.

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We're recording episode 5 of Dreamland straight after this, actually.

And I'm really excited about it because it's something that's been preying on my mind for a little while, Dave.

We are going to tackle the perfect football season and all the elements that might make that up.

Further details will be within the intro of that episode.

People are wondering how the hell we're going to do this.

But I think we've got all our bases covered.

I'm looking forward to it.

Yeah, yeah, it's going to be really good, perfectly timed ahead of the start of the season.

It's been fun looking back at all the various seasons and trying to piece together the perfect elements.

Charlie, we say on this podcast a lot about how much we enjoy just listing players' names.

Well, I also just enjoy approximating the modern football experience, and this is going to be very much an exercise in that as well.

Yeah, I'm very much looking forward to it.

I mean, yeah, you realize you'd have very strong opinions on a lot of these elements, and I, yeah, obviously as a Premier League Earsman, I do think about what makes a good season quite a lot.

It's gonna be a good curtain raiser, I think.

So, that's episode five of Dreamland.

It's gonna be out really soon.

Right, let's stick with the season preview theme.

Uh, I want to go through some creatively posed Premier League season predictions before the season kicks off on Friday.

This might set the tone.

It came from Kino for Taoiseach.

He says, The idea that Brentford are going down or will be in a relegation scrap has become the most common controversial opinion.

So the point where thinking that Brentford will actually be fine is the actual controversial take.

I'll be interested to hear if you know of similar cases of this.

Charlie, this is really tantalizing because, you know, as we hinted at earlier in this episode, the fear of getting something drastically wrong with a season prediction really sort of plays on people's minds when this sort of stuff.

So Brentford and Brentford are really kind of rattling people now because I don't know, I don't know what how to call Brentford's imminent season.

Yeah, I think there's something in this.

I'm not sure people would necessarily call it controversial.

I think there is an acknowledgement that this feels reasonably likely to happen.

But I have been wanting to talk about this for a long time.

You so often see this on Twitter on the kind of controversial opinion, but, and it's something that's like,

not that controversial.

Like, is it?

Like, you know, I know people shout me down for this, but, and it's sort of.

Whisper it quietly, okay.

Yeah, kind of.

Like, it's a weird caveat.

Yeah.

I mean, yeah, Dave, if I had a gun to your head right now, where are Brentford finishing in the Premier League this season?

This is the cycle that you go through, because we talked about it a few weeks ago.

Me and you, Adam, were in agreement that we thought Brentford would struggle.

But this is really easy to go

to go for that opinion just because of a new manager who hasn't been a manager before.

They've lost two of their best players, probably going to lose a third.

Yeah.

Signed Jordan Henderson, which we're not sure whether that's going to be good or bad.

So we're, and we're also desperately looking for a team that could get relegated that isn't a promoted team.

So we'll go for them.

But that's solid logic.

Having your team decimated, having your best players leave or presumably about to leave is a massive reason for a club to be shit.

Yeah, yeah, it is.

But also, I think the earlier you go for that opinion, the more time you've got for it to come back round and go, actually, I'm not sure.

Maybe Wolves are going to be the ones that struggle this shit.

You're allowed to change your mind.

I do also, I definitely, what I think is irritated with these things is if...

People do present these opinions as if they're like the first person to have it.

That is really annoying.

And you do get a bit of that.

You're like,

listen, Brentford, I don't know.

Like, I think they might struggle.

As if you're the first, like, everyone is saying that.

That's when it becomes annoying.

Everyone, it's all right for your predictions to be wrong.

Don't worry about it.

Everything will be fine.

Listener Sam has a cracker for us.

Here is his list of predicted Monday night football guests for the first portion of this season: John Terry, Lee Carsley, Oligon Asolsiar, Jamie Vardy, Ange Postacoglu, Adam Lalana.

I feel very strongly about that.

Pepe Rayna.

That is a great shout.

Steve Cooper, Serena Wiegman, and Son Hyung Min.

What a list that is, Charlie.

There's not a dud in there at all.

No, that's incredible.

I mean, Ange, yes, 100%.

He would love to do it.

He'd be great on it, broadcasting.

He feels like the least likely of the lot, just because I feel like he might be a bit hesitant.

But at the same time,

he's got a job to get, right?

Man, also, like, as much as he, like, last season, for instance,

you can get away with doing,

after a thursday night game you can just tag on some questions and make that your premier league preview he would always come back on the friday despite you know they might have played away because he quite i think he must have quite enjoyed them like he loved holding court and i think similar similarly on mnf like you get fated you get presented as being this like oracle that seems kind of fun i think and i think he'd really enjoy it that is a good shout actually dave ange poster coglu has a really good all-round Monday night football appeal because he could sit and happily answer pretty much all the questions that carraghood could fire at him.

Even the kind of things like, where did it go wrong at Spurs?

Like slightly spiky ones, he'd be happy to answer.

But also, I think he'd be quite happy standing in front of the massive screen, you know, telling us why Burnley's press isn't working properly.

He'll happily shoot the shit about any team as well, whether it means anything to him or not.

So I think he'd be really solid.

And a lot of people would be really impressed with him being on there as well.

Yeah, he ticks every possible box for them.

He'll be a really good guest.

He has a vested interest in doing it himself because he was at such a level that he doesn't need a Monday night football.

He's not Gary O'Neill.

He's not Will Still.

He's got enough about him to get a job anyway.

But it still seems to be something that the Out of Work managers just think they have to do just to get them in the public eye.

He's hidden in the League Managers Association statutes by now, I believe.

Yeah.

This.

John Terry wouldn't bowl me over, Charlie.

I think that's a really Monday Night Football by Numbers guest.

But Serena Viegman would be really interesting.

It would be just an unusual route to go down.

And I would, you know, I want to see a top-level manager on there.

And that would be, I think she would do it.

Yeah, she feels a little too, like, un-sky sports somehow.

Like, I don't know.

I think of her because she's like England, she's international, that's more sort of BBC ITV.

Whereas Terry feels so sky.

Like, I can imagine him also doing the Gary Neville soccer box.

Yeah.

Like, I can sort of imagine him on anything.

And he would be perfect for the later bit of the show when they go through, like, best players you've played with, manager, and

telling the Mourinho stories for like the 58th time.

But

we went out and he told us we were going to win 1-0, and we did.

Yeah, yeah.

I don't think Lee Carsley will be up for it.

We interviewed him on England Pod a few months ago before the Euros, and he's a nice bloke, but he's just not really.

I don't think he's, as we saw when he was the interim England manager, he's not really that bothered about doing all the big press stuff.

But you might like talking about the tactics, he is a real sort of tactics man.

Him and Carragher would have a good time on the old big screen.

I think maybe Ashley Cole, his assistant, would potentially be a good one.

He's done it already, hasn't he?

He must have done it.

Yeah.

I think there's one thing thing missing from this list, though, and that's a current player who's injured and therefore has time on their hands.

So

James Madison is surely going to pop up at some point this season.

Ooh, great.

Passionate recovery going, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's going to be a good thing.

I know it's tough, but

yes, that's cool to wait for boys.

But yeah, no, I've been really impressed and yeah, cheering them on.

Vardy's high possibility, Charlie, because it's good to have a striker on because people like watching and people and Sky Sports like asking players about the art of goal scoring like that that's a slam dunk Monday night footballer yeah yeah

you can do nothing all game but you're making so many runs off the ball aren't you and that's what we don't see I do just I do just wonder if Vardy does he give enough of a shit to do it like in some ways that helps you because it might be like oh we can just get him on he's outspoken but I can also just imagine unlike Madison who I think loves talking about football and and kind of loves the attention I don't know they've had some very subtle spoken reticent people on there though it doesn't seem like a prerequisite to be a good talker they've had some real sort of, you know.

No, I'm sure he'd be good.

I just don't know if he'd be asked.

Yeah, maybe.

That's possible.

Dave, who's going to finish 11th?

Brentford?

Charlie?

They'd bite your hand off that.

I reckon Nottingham Forest.

I think they'll have a tricky, yeah, a tricky season after last year.

Little gentle regression, sort of halfway down to where they were before.

Yeah, I think they might actually be quite a lot lower and then sort of rally and get back to sort of safety of mid-table.

Oh, okay.

I thought your logic would be that they would hover around seventh or eighth and then just plummet to eleventh right at the end.

Okay.

No, no,

I think the

managing Europe element for them will be quite tricky and tough start.

And they might have been a little bit found out.

Yeah, that's true.

But then they do have some good players, so they'll be fine.

Yeah.

Your logic basically just oscillates and then finally finds its place.

Charlie, who won't have the bottle to sack their manager until someone else does in the November international break?

And then they quickly follow suit, hoping they'll get less heat for it as a result.

I think also Forrest.

I think

with this imagined slow start that I've got, you know, because it'll be tough to get rid of Nuno, he did such a good job, but at the same time, results speak for themselves.

And we are 15th and with regret.

Sorry, Nuno.

And then Angie's just been on Monday night football.

And there he is.

And Angela Forrest is so good.

And he's a historic as well.

For another tilt of the Europa League.

Oh, that's just a historic club as well.

Like, he loved Brian Clough.

And,

God, that feels

too right.

I'd never even considered this before.

That is perfect.

Dave, who or what will be Keesy's new slightly excessive cross-platform preoccupation for 25-26?

I think you've got to have a referee controversy in there.

I can see him actually really fixating on the referees counting down the seconds with the ball in the keeper's hands.

Something that in the grand scheme of things is completely irrelevant.

I saw it in the wild for the first time last night

in Watford played Norwich and the Carabout in the 93rd minute in a game that we were obviously going to lose.

Their keeper had the ball, took a bit long with it.

The referee put his hand up.

I couldn't see the fingers.

I could see he was doing something, but I couldn't make out the fingers.

But the fans were just annoyed anyway.

And what was interesting was that clearly the fans haven't been paying attention and they were still counting six.

They don't know it's gone up.

The referees are going to be like, you haven't even read the rules, lads.

You haven't got a clue.

Charlie, I think Keese will take a few weeks before laying into the Puma match balls.

I think that's just the sort of level that he could get stuck into.

Related to that as well, because he tweeted, didn't he, about Yokarez being used to the Puma match balls, and that helped the idea that that would help it.

Did he?

I couldn't work that tweet out.

Was he actually stating that as his own opinion?

Or was he lampooning Arsenal fans for having that opinion?

Like saying that they were thinking that, you know, Joker is going to be great because he knows the ball.

So I couldn't work out what level of irony he was working on.

I can't can't believe he was sincere about it, was he?

I don't know, but I can't imagine he'd be that subtle, would he?

Like, if he wanted to make a dig at the Arsenal, and also because he has been talking up Jokarez, because I think that will become another thing, because Jokarez will undoubtedly become a massive, dividing,

divisive topic.

And, you know, but he's gone in early, sort of all for him, which is quite risky.

Because I think had he not known him from Coventry, he could be doing the whole, he scored goals in Portugal, Andy.

I would score goals in Portugal, but he's he's taken the other view.

And then the reverse of that, I think he'll be going in for Amarim in a pretty big way if results aren't good early.

This is a good point, actually, Dave.

Yokorotis clearly can do no wrong in Keese's eyes for obvious reasons.

But I think he'll go after Sesko because it's the Man United angle.

It's an easy route in for Keese's...

ire and I think if Shesko goes six seven games without scoring early doors I think he might come up with a nickname for him Misco

I think maybe yeah yeah Misco would be Benjamin Misco I think he also, I mean, he's already hinted, hasn't he, that

he doesn't think the Mbumo deal was good value.

I could see him having, what were they doing, signing it from Brentford Andy?

Brian and Hopeless.

That could be good.

Charlie, any breath of fresh air potential this season?

I mean, it feels like a dying arc.

I think Sunderland, we talked about it the other day, didn't we?

That they at least appear to be...

giving it a good go.

Okay.

And people want a new team because it's been so long.

The last two years has been such a bust with relegated promoted teams teams going straight back down again.

Yeah, it does help to be a sort of slightly surprised promoted team, Dave, to be the breath of fresh air.

But more needs to happen.

They need to have a distinct style of play.

I must confess, I know nothing about Sunderland's style of play.

But they've made some shrewd signings.

So

that could be it.

Maybe.

They've made a lot of signings and we haven't seen them in the Premier League for a while.

And, you know,

there's a bit of romanticism around the Stadium of Light and it's a big club and it's the North East and we have the, well, again, we're going to have the derby back and everything you know in contrast

leads are a bit weird in that they they've in they're in this sort of yo-yo period aren't they and we sort of the premier league welcomes leeds united because it's a big club but none of us are quite sure whether they are actually proper leads still or are they going to fuck it up again and then burnley are just burnley aren't they they've even though they had the company era where they were actually playing or trying to play quite progressive football they've now gone back to being really really ultra-defensive under Scott Parker, but they still haven't shaken the tag of the DACE years and just being unglamorous.

Charlie, what will be the first ref cam-based controversy of the season?

Will there be something that like it appears that a ref was celebrating a goal and that that's like their fists in front of his face or something?

Or even like, you know, if you listen really carefully, you can hear like a little yelp of excitement from the ref.

And that's typical of him.

Like we know he know he'd grew up a Liverpool fan.

Yeah, it's just going to be mana from heaven for all the sort of amateur ref conspiracy theorists out there.

They're going to be analysing it like they're the bloody CIA.

Well, exactly.

And on that note, I think there's a more mundane controversy in the works of this, and this could run and run throughout the whole season, Dave, which is, you know, analysis of referees' positions

their viewpoints of certain decisions.

We're going to have amateur experts on how can we see it from there.

Yeah, exactly.

Bloody's just run 50 yards, mate.

Oh, I honestly, I just think, yeah.

Well, he was in a better position for Arsenal's game, I noticed, the other day for it.

That's interesting.

We can can have loads of that.

That will be tedious.

Finally, Dave, which player will emerge as a late contender for Thomas Tuschall's World Cup squad, only to be uncontroversially cut from the 30-man preliminary squad just before the tournament?

I'm going for Tino Liveramento, Jarrell Quanta, Archie Gray, or Jamie Gittens.

Gittens is interesting, yeah.

No one's really talking about him.

He's not really in the England picture, is he?

But he will be by dint of signing for a Big Six club.

I think Adam Wharton could continue to have an interesting England existence.

Right.

Being out of nowhere making the squad for the Euros in 2024, then not getting a look in on the pitch, then he didn't get into Tuchel's first squad because he was still with the under 21s because they had a tournament.

You know, there's a lot of, there is like a really low-level clamour from England fans for him to be in the team, but I just wonder whether he might actually never quite get there.

If he narrowly misses out on an England squad for the next, for the World Cup, Charlie, I actually think Crystal Palace's fan base would actually explode.

Like, I think that's one injustice too far for them.

Just a perpetual clamour.

Could you take a player being left out of England's World Cup squad to Cass?

Could you just reconsider this, please?

This lot over in Switzerland says he should be in the squad.

So that would be...

Presenting them with evidence of his numbers for the season, where he sits relative to England's other midfielders.

There's going to be a lot of greelish talk, isn't there, this season with England, I think, as well.

Did you see the stuff about him getting the number 18 shirt for Everton?

And they've made a bit of a song and dance about it because it was

Wayne Rooney's number for Everton and Paul Gascoigne's number for Everton in that somewhat fantastic.

It's like, and Grealish was quoted himself saying, you know, Wayne Rooney and Paul Gascoigne were my favourite ever players and English players and getting the number 18.

I'm really happy to have it.

It's like, no one, nobody knew, apart from Everton fans, that Wayne Rooney was number 18.

Also, you're alone, son.

Don't worry about what number you're getting.

Remember the number?

Yeah, no, I actually don't.

That's mad that I can't picture Rooney's number when he scores that goal.

Right, next up,

a very silly Mezert Hollandix irritation from MCFC fan Charlie.

He says, I'm well aware of how silly this is, but it really irks me when a football stadium on Google Maps doesn't have the pitch in place.

For example, for some reason I was finding the Burton Albion stadium on Google Maps today, and it was just all turfed up.

It was just the clay underneath.

There must be a logical explanation for this.

Like, you know, maybe the sight lines for a satellite are clearer in the summer, and that's when teams are ripping up their pitches.

So, is this a is this across the board, or this happens a lot, or this is like an isolated incident?

I it does happen a lot.

I've seen it happen, right?

That is, it's happened to me, and it can't just be unlucky.

We can't just be two people being unlucky.

It must be a satellite thing, yeah.

Maybe, yeah, you could be right.

It could be some logic to that, and there probably is a fair bit of randomness in there as well.

But I know what you mean.

It does

unsatisfying.

Is it a rights issue?

Can't show the hallowed turf of Burton Albany.

Yeah, maybe.

There we are.

Right, this came from Henry Thiekston.

Here is Jan Argo Fjordoft on Middlesbrough's first game at the Riverside Stadium in 1995, talking to vanquished clichés quiz opponents.

It was what it was.

And then we got into the first game of the season.

We played Chelsea.

That was a great Chelsea team.

I did a bus-Aldrin goal.

I scored a second one.

So Craig Hignit, the local hero, scored the first one.

We beat Chelsea.

I love this concept and the idea that it could catch on.

A really niche reference, Charlie.

A Buzz Aldrin goal.

It sounds like something like, you know, the German language would come up with.

Yeah.

It's a class reference.

This is.

He is, of course, the second man to walk on the moon after Neil Armstrong.

Yeah, that's that's...

I've never heard that before.

I wonder if that is a Scandinavian thing that he's brought over.

I mean, it has a little bit of a foothold, kind of footballing relevance, Dave.

Being the guy who scored the other goal in a game that was quite pivotal, but people always remember the other goal.

Take, for example, Ricky George's winner for Hereford against Newcastle in 1972.

That won the game, but no one talks about it because of Ronnie Rabbit's screamer.

The guy, who was it that scored the other, was it the hat-trick in the Stanley Matthews final?

Was it Morton?

Oh, Stan Mortenson.

Mortensen.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He's done Aldrin, Apollo 13, and all the life.

Right, Charlie, have you ever read Homer's Iliad?

I have done not all of it, but I have studied some of it, yeah.

Okay.

As a school.

Ben Rowe writes in and says, I was reading Homer's Iliad for my sins and came across in line 85 what must be one of the earliest recorded usages of this specific footballing disdain.

So basically, Agamemnon has suggested that

they retreat in their battle.

And Odysseus gave him a black look and said, Agamemnon, why do you say such a thing?

Damn you.

You should have taken charge of some tinpot army instead of leaving people like ourselves.

They weren't saying tinpot back then, were they?

Well, I mean, this is a modern translation.

I mean, Homer.

Yes, thank you, Charlie.

Yes.

Homer wouldn't have written this himself.

But I do remember studying like Latin and Ancient Greek.

You would be encouraged with your translations to give try and give it a flourish, especially as you're sort of moving up to like A-level and stuff.

So, like, and I remember sometimes they would, our teachers would say, like, you know, think of, don't just go for like the boring translation.

Try and use like a modern or more interesting turn of phrase.

So I wonder if the person who's done this translation is a footballman.

Codes written by John Cross, I think.

Right, next up, the ghost of Gerald Sid writes in, Dave, and says, With the talk about cricket being good for clichés content on Tuesday's pod, who would Adam have present cricket cliches?

And who would he have on the panel?

Well, before Lineker nips in and creates the rest, is cricket anyway.

One name for you, Vithushan Ihantharaja.

I think he'd get it.

I think he'd be a good cliché's cricket clichésman.

Yeah, yeah.

He's on the cliché sporkle.

He had his one up, didn't he?

Yeah, should we start an empire?

Should we start branching out?

I've long thought it could be a possibility.

I did the tennis clichés segment for Five Live earlier in the semester.

I mean, to go alongside Vish, Nick Miller, of course.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's all there for us.

Could you get 450 episodes of cricket cliches?

I wouldn't put it past them.

I think what we would do if we started out any other cliches is probably not do two a week.

Yeah, enough and our blades.

Right.

Twig writes in next, Charlie, and says, Uh, bear with me, this is meant for you and not mum's net.

My son is wearing nappies overnight, but is nearly always dry in the morning.

However, when we have tried without nappies, he keeps wetting the bed.

All I can think is how this is the bed-wetting equivalent of being too good for the championship, but not good enough for the Privy League.

Brilliant!

What a way to analyse the situation from a parent's perspective.

That is superb.

Yeah, my younger son is at a similar stage, and I have to say, I hadn't yet made that connection in my head, but I now will.

Just can't handle the physicality of a nappy list night needs the comfort yeah of the champo comes thick and fast in the champo rights similarly um david writes in dave and says i walked past a lad of about eight in ikea this afternoon talking to his mum about how his football team are doing he told her he has a gold contribution every six and a half minutes no oh come on

what's the mum react is that all that sounds good

That sounds good.

Classic Ikea chat, that is.

Blimey.

Things have moved on, haven't they, Dave?

Yeah, they have, but I mean, bloody hell.

God, the game's gone.

Yeah, it really has.

There was a kid of about a similar age, I reckon, maybe a bit younger, behind me at Watford on Tuesday night.

And he was just absolutely going through it.

It was like he was a 50-year-old bloke, just swearing, giving it a wanker sign.

That's

direct learned behaviour, isn't it?

You'll see families on holiday, and the 13-year-old kid is walking around like the dad.

The same posture,

the same look on their faces, the same sort of suspicious look as they enter a room.

They're sort of scanning the room and they, yeah, it's, yeah, a mistrust of society that's that's bled down to the to the child.

Yeah, basically.

I've seen it.

It happens.

Just on the game's gone, by the way.

Sorry, I just, I saw someone tweeting the other.

I can't remember who it was, but it was a kind of like, I think it was after the palace thing.

It was one of those like, you know, this is, no club can be ambitious because of this.

There's so much hypocrisy in football.

It's all about money.

And then the last tweet of this read was said like, the game hasn't gone yet, comma, but.

And I was like, that's, I think that's the first time I've ever seen it being talked about in that way.

Like, the game's not gone.

It's not completely gone, but it's still hope.

Yeah, it's getting, it's getting very close to being gone.

Still just gone.

I love this game, but it's testing my patience.

It's so nearly gone.

But not quite.

It's like the UN panel for climate change releases a report saying the game could be gone by 2030.

Even though we don't make scaxes, the brink of gone.

Yeah, we're on the brink of gone.

It very much feels that way.

This episode has gone, though.

Thanks to everyone for listening.

Thanks to you, Dave Walker.

Thank you.

Thanks to you, Charlie Eccleshare.

Thank you.

And we'll be back on Tuesday.

See you then.

This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network.

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